Book: The Polar Bear Piper, by Erica David.
3-3.5/5. Goodreads review also here. This review contains some minimal spoilers.
+-1
This was, in my opinion, an improvement on the other two stories from
this series I've read regarding its less blatant problematic treatment
of class and monarchy. Disney always tends to sugarcoat these topics in a
way that I consider pretty problematic, and there are instances of this here
as well, but see for example this other review
or this one of one of the other stories for a particularly horrible way to handle
these topics 😬. The villagers still fawn over the royals in this story
over every decision they make, and gift them stuff for helping them when
it should be part of Elsa's job (and Anna and Elsa would be the last
people who would need to be gifted food, to be honest 🙄 xD), but all in all it
all didn't make me roll my eyes every page of the story because it
wasn't as heavy-handed, and thank goodness for that.
+1
Characterization and plot are still too a bit too 2D for my particular
taste (I'm also bearing in mind that I'm reading a children's series,
granted xD), but Elsa and Anna were characterized here way better too,
and more in line of their movie personas, I think. In other stories I've read of the
series, they can range from out-of-character clueless (in A Warm Welcome
they don't even know how climate works, I mean, wtf 🤣), to extremely
obnoxious in their entitlement (especially Anna), but I liked them here
quite a lot, thankfully xD.
I liked that Anna is the most proactive one in this story, and goes sleuthing inspired by a female detective she likes reading about (I'm also in a Murder, She Wrote phase, it was all a bit Jessica Fletcher, which I appreciate xD). Elsa also makes use of her ice powers.
Women sleuthing ftw 😄
+1 Another thing I liked is the subversion of traditional gender roles regarding some of the villagers' jobs, having a man be in charge of Arendelle's main laundry and a woman as one of the most capable fisherpeople 👍.
+-1 There's also some positive promotion of the benefits of recycling. However, the story, children's story as it is (it did subvert gender roles, include proactive feminist characters and talk about recycling, children *do* need to learn about these things and not the problematic obsolete ones), could also have commented on climate change because it was an integral part of the plot, but missed that opportunity.
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